Easter

“A Worn Path” by Eudora Welty is a story of love and sacrifice, two of the primary reasons for Easter.  In this quiet story old, black Phoenix Jackson walks to town to obtain medicine for her grandson.  Phoenix “was very old and small and she walked slowly . . . Her eyes were blue with age.  Her skin had a pattern all its own of numberless branching wrinkles as though a whole little tree stood in the middle of her forehead.”  Phoenix endures fear, pain, and humiliation, but brushes them off  and retains her dignity throughout her journey. 

Phoenix walks through deep, still woods, climbs up a hill “through pines” and “down through oaks,” maneuvers through thorn bushes, crosses a creek on a log, crawls under barbed wire and walks through a dead forest, dead corn fields, and a swamp.  She travels through cold and wind.  Just as she starts on “the easy going,” a black dog startles her and she lands in a ditch, too weak to get up by herself.  A young, white hunter helps her out and orders her to return home.  When she insists on going to town, he insults her by saying “I know you old colored people!  Wouldn’t miss going to town to see Santa Claus.”  But, the motivation for Phoenix’s journey is not trivial, it’s a labor of love. Read the rest of this entry »